Meet Other, the Biggest Mobile Brand You’ve Never Heard Of

Global mobile phone sales fell in 2012, according to Gartner estimates released today, with the industry selling 1.7% less phones than it did in 2011. That works out to a decline of just under 30 million total handsets — not much relative to the almost 1.75 billion that were sold, but in the same ballpark as the total sales of smaller players like HTC Motorola or BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

In the past, handset sales have had shaky years in Europe or North America, but booming demand from Asia meant the total market kept growing. Since 2006, there’s been only one other year when global mobile sales declined: 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, when the number dropped by just 0.9%.

Since then, the market went back to healthy growth, up 39% in 2010 and 11% in 2011. The decline last year hints at the much-discussed slowdown in China and other emerging economies, but also saturation: there’s a dwindling number of people left in the world who yet to buy their first phone, and the industry is moving away from land-grab mode to a more mature phase.

But forget about the big names. Who’s really selling the world’s handsets?

“Other” — a grouping of dozens of small manufacturers — sold as many phones in 2012 as Samsung, Apple, Motorola and HTC combined. And its 33.6% market share was as steady as a rock, not moving an inch from the year prior.